It’s the beginning of a new season and that means a new block for my Facebook page A Quilt Block A Day! The page is fun to follow. The idea is that even if you’re too busy to make a new quilt, you should be able to find time to make at least one quilt block a day. At the end of the quarter, you’ll have about 90 quilt blocks! Not everyone makes a block a day. Some do seven a week, or a handful when they find the time, but it’s still fun. I always do a tutorial for the new block and during the quarter I post lots of inspiration—and so do those who follow the page. So, click on over to the Facebook page and click “Like” so you can follow all the fun, too!

This time, the block is the Chevron. There are many ways to make a chevron quilt. You can do it with triangles or rectangles, it can be scrappy or planned, the rows can be the same width or different widths. This is my favorite way–with a skinnier accent row and triangles, and it couldn’t be easier! It’s easy to do with scraps or yardage. I had a lot of Halloween fat quarters that I’ve collected over the years, so that’s what I’ve used here, and that’s how the tutorial is written. At the bottom, I’ll give additional instructions for scraps.

You will need an assortment of fat quarters and an accent fabric.

From the fat quarter, cut a 4-1/2″ x 22″ strip.

From the accent fabric, cut a few 2-1/2″ x 44″ strips. Cut them in half to match your fat quarters.

Stitch them together with a 1/4″ seam. Press.

Cut into 6-1/2″ segments.

Lay your blocks out so they form a zigzag design. That’s it! I told you it was easy!

Since these blocks are set on point, you’ll eventually need side-setting and corner triangles. This can be the same as the accent fabric or a different fabric.

For the side setting triangles, cut squares 9-3/4″ and cut them in half twice diagonally.

For the corner triangles, cut squares 5-1/4″ and cut them in half once diagonally.

You can make your zigzags vertical, like I did in my Halloween quilt, or horizontal, like the quilt below that I did for our local Loyalty Day celebration. You’ll also notice that the Halloween quilt is “controlled scrappy,” meaning I used many different prints, but kept the colors the same in each row. The Loyalty Day quilt uses the same fabric in each row. Oh, the possibilities!

I hope you’ll try this, join the Facebook group and post pictures of your progress!

The block for this quarter is the Spool Block. It offers a lot of options and is quick and easy to piece. If you do just one block a day, you’ll have a 78 blocks finished before the first day of spring!

This is a great way to use your scraps. All you need is: 2) 2-1/2″ x 7-1/2″ brown rectangles, 4) 1-1/2″ light squares, 2) 1-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ light rectangles and a 5-1/2″ center square—either plain or pieced. I like using a stripe because it looks like thread wrapped around the spool.

Some people like to mark their squares with a diagonal pencil line when doing sew-and-flip corners, but I just finger press them–quick and easy!

Add a square to opposite ends of the brown rectangle.

Stitch, trim and press. Note: I didn’t trim the background fabric away. It makes it a bit bulky, but I also think it stabilizes it. Your choice! Do this with both brown rectangles.

Add the white rectangles to the sides of the 5-1/2″ square.

Now add the brown rectangles to the top and bottom, making sure the light areas match up. Voila! You have a spool block! The unfinished block is 7-1/2″ x 9-1/2″.

Now, here’s where the fun comes in. You can do all kinds of things with the center square. You could sew 5) 1-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ strips together to make it look like thread wrapped around your spool.

How about using random width strips on an angle to represent the thread? I foundation pieced this.

Do you save selvedges? This is a great place to use them!

Here are the four sample blocks I made. I’ll play with setting possibilities when I have more finished.

They do make an interesting design when set next to each other. You get some secondary action going on!